Comment by Sara Ibrahim

The European Union has announced investments in artificial intelligence (AI) worth many billions of euros with the ambition of creating a “CERN for AI”. But the inclusion of Switzerland, home to the world-renowned particle physics laboratory, may be limited by its non-EU status. “We want to replicate the success of CERN in Geneva,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at the AI Action Summit in Paris in February. To achieve this goal, the EU has earmarked €200 billion (CHF190 billion) for the construction of AI “gigafactories”, huge advanced data centres to boost Europe’s technology infrastructure and accelerate the development of AI. The vision is clear: to create a “CERN for AI”. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is one of the world’s most renowned scientific institutions, responsible for groundbreaking discoveries such as the Higgs boson particle and the invention of the World Wide Web. Established in 1954 – decades before the EU itself – CERN was deliberately placed in Switzerland to ensure its neutrality and international accessibility. It remains a hub for cutting-edge physics research, hosting projects such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s most powerful particle accelerator. A new “CERN for AI” could serve a similar role for artificial intelligence, shaping global research and setting new standards in machine learning, robotics, and ethical AI governance.